Moran Yacht & Ship sells M/Y ‘Northern Star’

After over six years on the market, the 75.4m Lürssen has been sold with a final asking price of €83 million.

Moran Yacht & Ship has announced the in-house sale of the 75.4m Lürssen-built motoryacht, Northern Star – sold with a final asking price of €83 million. The sale comes shortly after the Fort Lauderdale-based brokerage firm’s sale of Solandge, which was sold with a final asking price of €155 million in March. The two deals are the biggest brokerage sales of 2017 by some margin and represent a combined final asking price of €238 million.

In a conversation with The Superyacht Report towards the end of 2016, Rob Moran, president of Moran Yacht & Ship, said he was “truly amazed” that Northern Star, which was originally listed for sale with the firm in January 2011 for €129 million, had not sold. But a €16.95 million price reduction in January this year would have almost certainly roused interest and proved that the seller was very keen to secure the sale.

The seller has been a client of Moran Yacht & Ship’s for over 18 years and this was his first explorer yacht, which Moran and his team managed the construction of when it was built in 2009. Moran says he told the owner before he commissioned the vessel that he may “lose many of the potential buyers” when resale came around. “For so many, an explorer boat is just not their cup of tea. I love explorer boats, but the resale is not as easy,” Moran said.

“What you’ve got to understand about boats such as Northern Star and TV [another of the firm’s second-hand Lürssen listings] is how much they would cost to replace. If you went to Lürssen for Northern Star, it would be well above €100 million and you’d have to wait for four years.”

Towards the end of 2016, the brokerage market for Lürssens was looking particularly bleak; there had been no significant second-hand sales for quite some time, the boats looked to be priced too high for the market, and the 60m+ sector was falling very flat.

66m Elysian, formerly Ester III, was then ordered for sale by the Supreme Court of Gibraltar Admiralty as a result of a claim by BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA, in November 2016, and the sales of Solandge, and now Northern Star, followed.

Moran Yacht & Ship has one second-hand Lürssen left on its books: 78.4m TV, at €92 million. The other notable second-hand Lürssen listing is 70m Martha Ann, for sale with IYC at $79 million, which now looks to be at a very promising pricing range.

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